A prospective multicentre study of barriers to discharge from inpatient rehabilitation

To assess the prevalence of and reasons for barriers to discharge from inpatient rehabilitation, to measure the resulting additional days in hospital, and to determine if these were predicted by key demographic or clinical variables.

Prospective open cohort study of 360 patients admitted into two inpatient rehabilitation units in Melbourne over an 8-02 and a 10-02 period in 2008.

Occurrence of discharge barriers, their causes and the duration of unnecessary hospitalisation.

There were 360 patients in the study sample, 186 were female (51.7%), and mean age was 58.4 years. Fifty-nine (16.4%) patients had a discharge barrier. The most frequent causes of discharge barriers were patients being non-weight bearing after lower limb fracture, family deliberations about discharge planning, waiting for home modifications and waiting for accommodation. Patients with acquired brain damage and lower limb fracture were the impairment groups most likely to experience a discharge barrier. Over the study period, 21.0% (3152/14 976) of all bed-days were occupied by patients deemed to have a discharge barrier. Regression analysis showed that age, sex, impairment group and dependency level on admission all influenced the occurrence of a discharge barrier. Although regression analysis showed that dependency on admission and age group were significant predictors of additional days in hospital resulting from discharge barriers (P = 0.006), these variables explained only 11% of the additional bed-days.

Barriers to discharge from inpatient rehabilitation are common and substantial, and they represent an important opportunity for improvement.